How do you guys count calories in prepared meals?

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iamastudent
iamastudent Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
For example, if my friend were to offer me a home-cooked meal, or if I ate out at the local cafe, how would I calculate the calories? What do you do? Make a ballpark guess? Look up a similar food? Individually add up the calories of whatever you see on the plate?

Thanks for your time :)

Replies

  • malibu927
    malibu927 Posts: 17,565 Member
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    If you didn't make it, see if something similar is in the database and make your best guess, usually with a higher entry just in case. If you can, see if your friend can give you the recipe and you can enter it into the recipe builder and log how much of it you ate.
  • greatatboats
    greatatboats Posts: 28 Member
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    Most of the time my eating out is chicken pad thai with maybe some crab rangoon, so I tend to log the PF Chang's one. I have no clue how accurate that is to my little hole in the wall Thai place, but it was at the high end of average.

    Realistically though, I'm in this for the long haul and my deficit is set to 750 a day right now, so if I end up eating at maintenance, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • tomlincampbell
    tomlincampbell Posts: 12 Member
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    many places have their foods listed, when eating at someone's house i guesstimate and tend to eat only half portions (i would rather under eat than over eat). i know many people try not to offend others but your host should respect your choices
  • pebble4321
    pebble4321 Posts: 1,132 Member
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    Just make your best estimate - I usually look in the database and pick something that is not the lowest or highest and use that. There will always be circumstances where you don't know the exact makeup of what you are eating, so it's a good skill to practice.
  • jdwils14
    jdwils14 Posts: 154 Member
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    I am educated enough to make an educated guess. I know what a serving of meat looks like, I know how easy the pasta counts up, and liquids can be estimated, etc. If I can't itemize, I just pick a portion and go with it. For instance, if it is lasagna, I would pick a Marie Callendar's meal, and estimate based on that.

    The more experienced you are, the more you can estimate food sample sizes without a scale. I have been without a scale for a few weeks now, but I can estimate the cheese servings I have pretty accurately. Same with butter and oils.

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